For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The fight was over and it took a few minutes to discover that one of the girls was missing. It was Dawn. It also didn’t take long for Scott to send me a text with a link one of his sex videos. This one showed Dawn and it was hard for me to look at. Apparently this was already being distributed through his network of paying customers. Ivy could see that I was disturbed by what I was watching, so she turned my hand to see what it was.
“They must have drugged her Steve,” she said quietly, “there’s no way she would do that otherwise, not with those two little boys.” Sky and Kat came over next and they were furious! “We’ll tear that Shining Moon apart until we find her,” they said to me. Vincent asked if he could see what was happening and I showed it to him. “I doubt he’s doing that at the Shining Moon,” said Vincent, “too obvious, he likely has another place hidden somewhere.” “I agree,” I said, then I contacted Aari, “Aari, are you guys up yet?”
“Yep, just finishing breakfast,” he said, “what’s up?” So I told him what had happened and said I wanted him to track down the leader of that street gang. Although he had been here, Kitty was careful not to kill him in case I wanted to talk with him. But when I let Winters go, I also let that guy leave as well. A bad mistake on my part. Aari said he knew where their clubhouse was located, so they would head over there right away. I told the girls to get the cats and we would check the Shining Moon anyway, just in case.
Meanwhile, the Aari told his Wolves to get ready to ride. “What?” asked Rock, Bear and Oskar, “we’re not finished breakfast yet.” “You guys are on your 4th helping of pancakes,” he said, “this is more important.” “More important than food?” asked Oskar. Aari then told them what was going on. They each grabbed their pancakes and were out the door amazingly fast. It didn’t take them long to arrive at the clubhouse of this street gang, who like to call themselves the Flying Vultures.
I doubt they can fly fast enough to get away from the Black Wolves though. The Wolves arrived and everything seemed to be nice and quiet, that is, until Rock smashed the front door of their clubhouse and the Wolves began to overrun the place. Rock quickly found the leader, since he had his own room. Rock pulled him out of bed and dragged him outside to Aari, who then explained some things to the young man. Rock just stood over the man, smiling, while now and then cracking his knuckles.
Aari explained that Rock enjoys breaking bones and he was very capable of breaking every bone in that young man’s body. Then Aari asked him where Scott makes his videos. “Which ones?” he asked, “He has 2 places, one for adults above the Shining Moon, and one with kids at an old warehouse at the edge of town. Carine communicated this information with me and we were soon heading for the warehouse, quickly. The Black Wolves took the phones away from the Flying Vultures and told them they could pick them up at the Shining Moon later.
Then they rode off to that same warehouse to meet us. We actually arrived at about the same time and the Wolves wanted to go in first, however, that might not be good for Dawn. So I sent the ghosts inside first, along with some cats to sniff around for a hidden door or room. Kat has invented a way to keep the cats invisible, even when away from the ghosts. She had something for them before, but the effect didn’t last very long. This new idea can be adjusted to last whatever length of time we need, which will be very helpful.
Fortunately Vincent and his two men stayed behind at the Shining Moon to wait for the other men sent by The City Club. So at least I didn’t have to explain our disappearing girls and cats. There were guards posted inside the building at various places, but the ghosts did nothing to them right now. They wanted to find Dawn first, then they could take care of any guards. On the third level there was a locked steel door and two guards standing beside it.
Sky went in the room and found Dawn sitting in a big chair crying, with 10 young children also in the room, a mix of boys and girls. We were to find out that the ages of these kids ranged from 6 to 10 years old. Dawn couldn’t talk, she just sat there crying and didn’t even want to move. Kat communicated with me that they had Dawn and the children, so it was okay to come in now. She also told me where each of the guards were located and in we went.
There wasn’t really much fighting, we used guns this time, since the guards also had guns. I said there was no point in taking chances. When I got to the third level room Dawn saw me and came running over to me, hugging me. “I didn’t have any choice Steve,” she said, “they punched those little boys in the stomach when I refused and said they would keep doing it until I obeyed. I had no choice Steve, I didn’t!” “She needs her older brother right now,” Kat said to me.
I guess she’s right, so I took Dawn out to the limousine and sat with her while the others made sure there was no one else in the building. Then they took the children out to one of the vans and soon the warehouse was in flames. Scott, however, was not found in the warehouse or at the Shining Moon. The others were not hard to find though, they were having a meeting at the mayor’s office…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Good afternoon everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful day. Here there is a mix of sunshine and clouds and a bit on the chilly side. The temperature is 7F (-13C) right now, so not too bad for a December day. There are two snowstorms coming in from the west this week, but both of them are going to miss us, including one today that seemed to head south. Normally these western storms move directly east and through our area, but not this week.
I think the second one is supposed to go north of us. So many places all around us are getting lots of snow, but we are not. On one hand that is nice, however, we do need the snow, so I wouldn’t mind a good snowstorm or two before Christmas. Speaking of plants, mine are doing well right now, everything is looking so nice and green.

The maroon tubes in the sunshine, on the lipstick plant.
A while back I took some cuttings from a couple of my hoya plants, plus my lipstick plant and had them sitting in water. Roots finally appeared and were now big enough that I could plant them. So, that is what I did this morning, well, not all morning, but it was done this morning. I still have 2 cuttings to plant. I also repotted my spider plant into a larger pot, which it definitely needed.
It certainly had a lot of roots. Speaking of my lipstick plant, it finally produced 4 flowers! I can see why they named it lipstick plant. First it grows these dark maroon colored tubes. Then the bright red flower buds come out of those tubes like bright red lipstick coming out of a tube.

This photo didn’t turn out too good, I tried to get too close. These are the flowers from the lipstick plant.
Hopefully it will begin to produce more of these flowers. It takes quite some time for these flowers to finally come out and bloom and they last about one week. I think it just needs more sunshine to produce more flowers and December is not really a sunny month.
I also cut off some “pups” (offshoots) from some of my aloe plants this morning. I got one from the Tiger aloe, one from the Black Gem aloe, two from the Krantz aloe and one from my Aloe Vera. Now I let them sit until tomorrow morning so the cut can callous before planting them. It is a great, and simple, way to get more aloe plants.

My photos on canvas, the picture in taken on an angle and the sun is shining on the White Pelicans photo.
Aloe plants are good for air purification, among other things. Aloe Vera especially is good for many things. That is one thing to remember, not all aloe varieties can be used like Aloe Vera.
Speaking of pictures, I recently got some of my photos printed on canvas. I love the way they came out! I have the larger one hanging and the two smaller ones on top of my TV cabinet with some plants. I think the arrangement looks rather nice that way. Well, I hope you all have a great Wednesday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. ©2025 Steve McLeod.